A long-debated plan to increase the height of a Verizon communications tower off the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road is set for a vote by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission early next year.

A public hearing on the plan was closed on Thursday night after commissioners received written testimony from Island arborists about the growth of trees around the tower.

Claiming that 22 to 24 trees are obstructing communications from the tower, Verizon wants to increase the height of the tower from 77 to 130 feet to provide a clear sight line to a sister tower in Falmouth.

The tower currently handles all Verizon landline service for the Island via narrow-width microwave, including for police, fire and EMT departments, and 911 service. It also provides internet access and reroutes service from Nantucket.

Some residential neighbors have objected to the plan.

Amid questions and conflicting opinions about how high the trees would eventually grow, at a previous meeting, commissioners decided to seek an opinion from a professional arborist about the growth rate of the trees around the tower.

“I think we are all probably on board that a new tower is necessary if you want to maintain the quality of your transmissions,” commissioner Joan Malkin said. “I think where we’re having difficulty is appreciating the need for a tower as high as you proposed.”

In written testimony, Polly Hill Arboretum executive director and Tim Boland and the arboretum’s certified arborist Ian Jochims said it was “very unlikely” that any of the trees would grow to 100 feet. The current tallest tree is 74 feet. The Polly Hill experts said poor soil and windy conditions on the Island would prevent the tree from ever reaching 100 feet — the threshold height under discussion. Two thirds of the trees around the tower are below 60 feet in height, which means it would take about 50 years for them to reach a height of 100 feet.

“By that time, they’d almost all have died,” DRI coordinator Paul Foley said.

Commissioner Doug Sederholm asked Verizon to provide a graphic analysis for the written record of how the tower would be affected if the aim was a maximum tree growth height of 80 rather than 100 feet.

“For those of us that think this tower may be a little high, this is important too,” commissioner Gail Barmakian said.

Geoghan Coogan, a Vineyard Haven attorney who represents Verizon, said the company would provide the analysis, but he assured commissioners the 100-foot tree threshold was not arbitrary.

“We didn’t just come up with a tower that’s a hundred feet because we wanted to come up with something that’s bigger and uglier on the road,” Mr. Coogan said. “It’s planned at 100 to get them out of the way so there’s never any impact . . . We’re building the thing for performance.”

The hearing was closed; the written record will stay open until the next commission meeting in January.

In other business, the commission voted not to review a plan for a mixed residential and commercial use building on Cook Road in Tisbury, sending the project back to the Tisbury planning board.

The proposed building would have 3,000 square feet of commercial space on its first floor, plus an additional 1,500 square feet on the second floor for worker housing.

Commissioners wanted to ensure that the proposed second-floor apartments would be used to house workers.

“Can the planning board set conditions that ensure its uses are the ones outlined here?” commissioner Linda Sibley asked.

Commissioner Ben Robinson, who also serves on the Tisbury planning board, said the conditions could be set out in the planning board review process and would be covered under zoning bylaws. Property owner David Bettencourt, who attended the meeting, confirmed the planned use for worker housing.

“If you are saying to me I need to build the apartment now, and that it is for employees, it definitely is,” Mr. Bettencourt said. “I have 14 employees and all of them need housing. That isn’t any issue for us.”

“We’re going to trust the town on this,” commission chairman James Vercruysse said.

The commission also decided to schedule a public hearing in response to a cease and desist order against contractors who working at 3 Mariner’s Way in Edgartown.

Approved by the commission in 2014, the two-story mixed-use building will have four 2,000-square-foot commercial condominiums on the ground floor and eight 1,000-square-foot residential condominiums on the second floor in the Edgartown B-2 commercial district.

Edgartown building inspector Leonard Jason Jr. filed the cease and desist order to stop construction on HVAC compressors on the building’s back porch. The commission will decide whether the compressors are in compliance with the 2014 DRI approval.

Mr. Foley said contractors have yet to build a 10-foot landscape buffer between the building and neighboring property, another condition.

“All we said was that you have to put them [the compressors] in the back and have them at a certain level,” Mr. Foley said. “And it looks like they’ve done that . . . I think they’re in compliance, and I just want to get your blessing so that I can tell Lenny that these compressors are in compliance with our condition.”

But from abutter Joyce Swartz persuaded commissioners to ask the applicant to submit a permit modification request.

“We’re asking you please to let them not leave eight compressors on that porch,” Ms. Swartz said. “Each compressor is like two people talking. That’s 16 people talking.”

The permit modification will require a public hearing.

The commission gave final signoff to the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital’s recent plan for modifications on the hospital campus, including increased parking and converting vacant units at the Windemere nursing facility to office space.

Commissioners also heard a presentation from Karen Toohey, director of the Martha’s Vineyard Network for Homeless Prevention. Ms. Toohey outlined the various ways homelessness affects residents of Martha’s Vineyard, explaining that the Island’s year-long rental shortage puts people even above the poverty threshold at risk of homelessness.

“The Island needs about 635 additional units of affordable year-round rentals, and maybe close to 1,000 market-rate rentals,” she said. “Any individual dependent on the rental economy is at risk for homelessness.”

“What you are talking about is a very serious thing, and we’ll have to come up with solutions,” commission executive director Adam Turner said.

Commissioners also elected Doug Sederholm as chairman and Josh Goldstein as vice chairman for the coming year. They will take over for outgoing chairman Jim Vercruysse and vice chairman Rob Doyle in January.